2019 W12 of 52 – Steve’s Body & Mind Progress Journal

THEME OF THE WEEK: #1: Results of 5-Week Blitz Cut

The aggressive Blitz Cut is over! Hurray! In all fairness, it was a breeze relative to the progress that I made, but being and out-and-out foodie I’m very happy to be going back to a less restrictive and bigger portion way of living… 😁

#1: Results of the 5-Week Blitz Cut

As stated in 2019 W5 Body & Mind Journal, I declared the end of my bulk and the start of a more aggressive cutting protocol five weeks ago. And to hold my feet to the fire, I shared my five week target. I also shared my mid-cut progress in terms of weight, strength, energy and mood in the 2019 W8 Boy & Mind Journal.

As a Reminder, here was my Blitz Cut Plan

The plan, which I followed pretty much to the letter is a 5:2-style dieting approach, inasmuch that there are five aggressively restrictive days combined with 2 near-maintenance refeed days:

1. 40% Calorie Deficit with 1-1.2g Protein / pound of bodyweight ~2,100-2,200 kcal/day & 220-240g Protein
2. A Carb Refeed every 3-4 days (i.e. Weds & Sat) at maintenance = ~3200 +/- 100
3. 5 Week Duration, ending 10-17th March 2019
4. Daily Plan – fully-loaded protein shake pre-workout, 650kcal lunch, 900kcal dinner, dessert and pre-bed casein shake
5. Expectation to lose 11lbs, averaging 2lbs a week in W2-5.

Let’s start with my Weight Loss through the Diet Period

To be honest, I am chuffed to bits that the plan worked 100% – both in terms of weight loss end goal and timeframe. That’s pretty unheard of!

Check this out:

What does this graph show?

1. I achieved the 193lbs bodyweight goal in 5 weeks and 1 day (the goal was within 5-6 weeks)
2. In total, I ran the Cut for 40 days to be sure, and lost a total to 14-15lbs
3. The green dots show how many calories I ate per day, where you can clearly see the refeed days
4. You can see my macro split in the pink/yellow/blue bars, where I attempted to lose most of the calories through carb (and fat) restriction
5. The green bars show my calorie deficit per day, which is my total calorie consumption minus my total calorie burn (TDEE)
6. The blue circles at the bottom show when I trained*

* For training, I followed the FEB-19 #HyperWorkouts for 4 of the 5 weeks, and then had a play-around resistance training week as it was time for my cyclic deload week. Cardio in the gym was negligible, other than 5-10mins of some kind of steady state / HIIT finisher. On top of that, I walked the dog for 30mins in the morning.

Most importantly, it shows the somewhat causal relationship between calories/carb consumption and weight fluctuations. It would easy to be disheartened when weight stuck or increased, but in retrospect it’s clear that this is normal and is NOT a sign that what you’re doing is not working.

What about Muscle Retention and Body Composition?

Good question! By now, you’ll probably know that I measure lots of things. I’m a data nerd. Why? Well, it’s just in my nature, and if I am going to achieve my two year body goal that was set in Jan 2018, I need to have a good handle on my muscle development and body composition.

So, guess what… I’ve got a table of data for that! 🤣

Check this out:

What are we looking at here?

1. Gold column – these were the body stat targets I set just before I began the cut. The targets were on bodyweight, body fat percentage, muscle size retention.
2. Blue column – This are the stats that I ended up on of the last day of the cut.
3. Gold arrow –  This shows my assessment of how well I did against each measurement, from OK, good or great. There were some great results, and luckily no let downs.
4. Purple columns – These represent my 2 year body goal, broken down into the individual stats, as well as showing what progress I need to make in the remaining 9 months.

What went well?

1️⃣ Duration – I lost exactly what I set out to lose within the timeframe, by staying 100% consistent with the plan.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

2️⃣ Relative Ease – whilst it’s no fun eating less than you need, the structure of this cut with refeeds made it non-dramatic and very effective.

3️⃣ Retained Muscle Size – I retained more size than I hoped for, in particular in Chest, Shoulders, Upper Legs and Arms.

4️⃣ Dropped 3% Body Fat – This was great, but there was more lean mass weight reduction than I had hoped for.

What were the downsides?

✖️4lbs Lean Mass Reduction – I strength trained consistently and maintained strength and volume. However, the drop in lean mass was more than hoped. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

That said, given my immediate weight reduction and lower carbs, I suspect 2 – 2.5lbs of that loss came down to reduced muscular water retention and less food mass in stomach. So, it looks like I may have lost about 1.5lbs of Muscle Mass.

That’s pretty good, as some muscle mass break down is inevitable when you cut. The goal is to minimise it as much as possible with adequate protein and strength training.

The big question – What’s the visual result?⠀

The data is cool, and important, but what matters most given this is a body composition pursuit is what do I look like? What was the visual result? Do I look better for it, or worse?

And importantly for me, am I making progress, or just spinning my wheels? I’ll let you decide…

What’s my take on the result?

Personally, I’m happy. I knew I would not achieve the level of leanness that would be considered aesthetically ideal in this Cut, because I didn’t see the point in pushing that hard. I would have struggled emotionally, it would have taken longer, and my muscle mass would have decreased further.

Instead, the goal was to keep my body fat levels check, and give myself a little confidence boost. Long term bulking accumulates fat, and after a while, you just don’t like what you see. And for me, my fat hangs around my lower back and stomach, creating a thick waist, muffin top and trousers getting too tight. 😬

Lastly, knowing my bulking days are not over, there was no point getting shredded, only to go put the extra couple percent back on within a couple weeks. I’ll hold off with that final ‘shred’ cut  until the backend of this year…

Right, so what’s next?

STEP 1 – I’m easing myself into eating more food, in an attempt to find my new baseline TDEE / maintenance calories. I’ve gone from ~2,100 kcal to ~3,100 kcal in a couple days, and am stepping that number up until I can stabilise my weight. This should take about a week, and will probably settle between 3,000-3,500 kcal dependant on rest or training days.

I’m not reverse dieting in the true sense of the word, because I want to get back into an anabolic state as quickly as possible, and I don’t see the point in dragging out a calorie deficit for another 4-8 weeks as I creep calories back in. Not for me, personally.

STEP 2 – Within a week or so, I then enter into another phase of lean bulking. That will be TDEE +5-7%. I’ve bulked higher than that, but to be honest the fat accumulation was higher than I would have hoped for. At 5%, which for me will be a surplus of about 200 kcal per day, I should be in a position to gain up to 0.5lbs of lean mass a month.

I will bulk for another 3-4 months, or once I get to about 205-210lbs.

I suspect to go on 2 more cuts up until the end of the transformation in December 2019. the first cut will be in June/July 2019, and the last cut will be in November to December.

If you want to give this Blitz Cut a go…

Firstly, take a look at the guidelines I outlined above. Then, use the AdapNation Calorie Planner tool to help judge calorie distribution and amounts of protein sources you need across your meals. This is a fantastic tool to to help see what’s possible. Click the image to read up on it and to request a free copy.

From there, look through the AdapNation Food Diary for inspiration. Clicking the image below will take you to the AdapNation Food Diary, where there are 100’s of meals, as well as the AdapNation Butler tool for specific ideas based on your preferences.

From a training perspective, feel free to check out the #HyperWorkouts Training Blocks. Within each Training Block, you get a programme, videos, training guidance and you can get the Training Block loaded into the awesome HeavySet strength training app in just a couple clicks!

Coming Up In Next Few Weeks

In terms of Training, Wellness, Mindset and Body Goals, here’s my focus for the next few weeks:

1. Book – Currently reading the eye opening book call Big Fat Surprise that exposes the politics and lack fo science that led to the whole low-fat recommendations over the last few decades.
2. Bulk – With the bulk, comes more food options, so expect a flurry of new AdapNation Food Diary meal ideas.
3. Train – Just wrapped up the design of APR-19 #HyperWorkouts Training Block, which is the most versatile and fun yet. Stay tuned…
4. Amazing Podcast Guests! – Big names, amazing conversations, and penny dropping insights. All landing in the next 4-6 weeks, every Tuesday.
5. Nice! – Oh, and we’re taking a sneaky break over Easter. To Nice, France. Should be fun… and tasty. 😋

P.S. I’ll let you know how I get on with an update every few weeks… 🙂